The Lord has come!*
This weekend I had the privilege of traveling with my husband to Huntsville for a gig he was playing with FFH. During the services, Jeromy said that approximately 400 years passed between what was most likely the last chronological book of the Old Testament, Nehemiah, and the birth of Christ.
I can't imagine what it was like to have no word from God for 400 years, considering they didn't have the Bible like we know it today. Whole generations would have lived and died without any new revelation from the Divine through a prophet or otherwise.
That's why this lyric took on new meaning for me this year. There is so much truth and inspiration in those four words.
The Lord has come! THE Lord. To me, the use of "the" means those who would have been exclaiming it knew exactly who Jesus was and what it meant for humanity. He was finally here! The one they'd been waiting for all this time. The one they were sure was coming; they just didn't know when. Here to save us all. What a blessing to not only be alive and experience the coming of our King, but to have the kind of faith to recognize it.
During the past couple of Christmases, it has really helped me to better understand the significance and joy of the birth of Christ to imagine what it must have been like before and during his arrival. How much more would I rejoice at his coming if I had known what it was like before him? Before redemption through faith? Before the hope the new covenant brought?
It's easy to take for granted the fact that Jesus has always existed for us. We as Christians don't know a faith before Jesus. Which is not to say that I am somehow disappointed in that. I don't really want to know what it's like without him. It's just that we can sometimes overlook the wonder and majesty of our Savior coming into the world when we didn't spend hundreds of years yearning for him.
Jesus was the single most divisive and pivotal human being to ever walk the earth. All things before and after his time on the planet point to him and our need for him. And we have the privilege of celebrating his arrival. And I'm thankful we live in a country where we are not persecuted for doing so.
So, rejoice, people of God, the Lord has come!
*As you may know, the original lyric is actually "The Lord is come," but for the sake of modern language and the fact that "The Lord has come" has become commonplace, I chose the latter.
In another not-so-coincidental coincidence, when visiting FFH's website to link to it, I noticed Jeromy's latest blog post talks about this exact longing he spoke of this past weekend. To read it, click here.